Spoilage

Posted on May 2, 2004    Posted by John Scalzi

Please understand that I realize this is almost unforgivable spoilage on my part, but I’ve given up the ghost in the form of my Yamaha keyboard and have transported it from my desk, where it’s collected dust for the last nine months, to my daughter’s room. Athena is always wanting to play it, and most of the time it’s inaccessible under piles of papers and books; now she can play it any time she wants to, without bothering me.

I feel mildly hypocritical in handing over a keyboard worth a few hundred dollars to my kid, not in the least because just yesterday I wrote over at By the Way about how amused she was by a $2 maraca, and used that as an example of how stressing about buying “the best” toys and such for your kids is a little pointless since kids amuse themselves with whatever’s at hand, no matter how much or how little it costs. I didn’t buy this for Athena, or with her at all in mind, but it’s still not a cheap little bauble to pass over to her.

But I look at it this way: It’s a question of use vs non-use. Fact is, I’m not using it, and am not that likely to use it again in any meaningful way (nearly all the music creation I do at this point is with my sequencer in the computer). Athena will use it, and as a nice bonus, might actually learn to use the damn thing over the course of time. It can be a massive paperweight on my desk or something that’s played with on hers. In that light, it’s worth a bit of spoilage.

Athena’s reaction to the news I was giving her the keyboard, incidentally: “Cool, daddy! Can I have your guitar, too?” The answer to that was no. But if I don’t play the guitar again over the next year, I may have to change my mind.